A former California surfer’s quest to become a real man in rural Vermont.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Driveway Aspirations

Now that the weather is warmer and drier, the issues we had
with our driveway have magically disappeared, and with them, our concerns. This
is an unfortunate turn of events, because it makes us complacent and forgetful about
how bad it can be. Somehow, each year we survive, and we figure we can get by
for another year, when in fact, I think there will come a day when we’ll get
stuck, and then it might be too late. Granted, the mud will eventually go away,
it always does, but at some point you have to be a little proactive.

With this in mind, I think we should take some action. At
the very least we should do what PR does, which is dump a load of gravel on the
trouble spots. Gravel is dirt cheap, which makes sense because it’s just rocks.
It’s the transport that kills you. The other issue is that darn drain pipe. I
still think that we should build a culvert and somehow divert all that moisture
through it. As usual, I’ve never dug a culvert before, but it seems pretty straightforward.
They say the biggest issue is when it freezes closed, because the water simply
runs over the path, but we don’t get that much moisture, just enough to turn
the road into serious mud.

Finally, there’s the option of a new driveway, but that is
something that would require professional help, so we’ll ponder that one for a
bit. I’ve spoken with a few excavators about it, so I have some sense of what
needs to be done. We’ll see where this one goes.